What we expected when Riot said "Support Utility will scale with AP"

So, I realize Annie may be a "Problem" when put in the support lane, but you have to realize, if you nerf her too hard, the people that play her like she is meant to be, IN MID LANE, like myself, will be pretty upset... I've bought quite a few of Annie's skins so I may strike fear in my enemy mid laners with fashion, but if you out-right nerf her for the sake that "She is a problem as a support" Is kind of bull****, excuse my French. It's just not fair to have a champion receive a hard nerf because people are exploiting it in another lane.

You might finally understand what us support mains who have had to endure Janna/Lulu/Soraka/Thresh nerfs due to their dominance in other lanes feels now. Welcome to our worlds.

You are misunderstanding what I am saying. You are equating "the support CAN'T" with meaning "the support SHOULD." Never once in any of my reaponses will you find a place where I said supports SHOULD be the only ones warding. What you will find is where I said "IF A PLAYER understands the importance of vision control they no longer have the ability to dominate it." This is in fact restricting player skill but you are to caught up in this fake liberation of supports that doesn't exist to see it.

Except that this player was almost always the support. The limitation was due to how people abused the support in this manner. Riot's entire reasoning behind it was "You buy Wardstone, you don't have to buy another ward, ever."

Most players who weren't the support would never buy more 2-3 wards at a time, while the support was buying anywhere near 5-7 plus Sightstone.

So yes, this has a lot to do with how "support's can't," because the entire change was aimed at how players in general forced the support to do this one task. Ask yourself, and be serious, when was the last time you saw a legitimate support without a Sightstone? If you aren't the support, then how is this game any different in this aspect? You still can buy wards, you can still add 3-4 wards to the map, you can still heavily effect vision control.

The only problem is now supports can't add substantially to the ward count and if no one picks up the slack, your team is down on wards, because obviously if you're not the support you're going to buy wards, right?

If not, then you are part of the very problem and you reenforce what I was saying earlier, because the support can't ward for everyone, all the sudden it's a bad thing.

MAYBE:
Passive now stund for 1.0/1.4/1.8 sec down from 1.25/1.5/1.75 sec

Mid lane annie will have a better AP ratio (Q) and the W CD (what helps the base dmg and the AP ratio in longer fights).
The longer E CD will increase the time between getting her stun ready (or increase the mana costs).

These changes are mostly nerfs aimed at support annie, ignoring mid lane annie most of the time (Q AP ratio and W CD are there for compensation). But I think annie needs a remake. She is an old, point blank burst caster that either kills you in one go, or she doesn't.
I think that playing around with more, but shorter stuns could work.
Also change Q or W into a more skill based skill. Q as a skillshot would have been my first idea, but people actually like/need the Q to CS. So why not make W a longer range cast but it needs to charge up like Xeraths new Q (the indicator then looks like Zac's E without the circle).
Molten shield could get an extra effect: When activating it, it will burn all targets around annie dealing x dmg over y seconds. The other effects would need to get tuned down a bit then. It would be more like a melee defense, useful later in the game when people want to kill her in close combat.

Agree support scaling needs a tuning pass. More follow-up we need to do there.

Morello, your against supports like Janna having mage level scaling, but I have a question about support scaling vs mage scaling, and would like to use 2 examples: Morgana and Janna.

First Morgana, a mage with the off role of support. I believe the off support comes from Black Shield, as its her only skill that effects her allies in a truly supportive way. Black Shield has mage level power and scaling even though shes primarily a mage, however the mechanics of not being able to block physical damage encourage that her supportive power isnt as good as a true support (I believe this is a good thing)

while her snare can be used as a support tool, its function is to root and damage the opponent, so she herself can do more dmg with her pool, so im not counting offensive skills as support skills here, otherwise all CC are support skills.

Second we come to Janna after the support scaling changes. Janna is a support with a off role as mage and has two support skills, her shield, and her channelled heal. Janna also has two mage skills (skills that effect the enemy negatively with damage and a possible side effect). From what I remember none of her skills have mage level scaling.

The thing that I see differentiating these roles is the simple mechanics behind the skills they use. Do you have skills that bring direct aid to your allies? or direct hindrance to your foes? What is so bad about Janna (well, all supports really) having mage level scaling on her supportive skills since thats her primary role, and weakened offencive tools much like Morgana's black shield?

I think in teamfights a team's decision on who to focus should include "Should we try and kill the mage thats trying to blow us up? or should we try and kill the mage(the support) thats causing their team to be much more powerful then they really are?"

Currently the supports like Janna, Lulu, and the others come off a a minor hindrance to the opposing team, just an inconvenience. I don't think current supports are unviable or worthless, but definitely harder to make work then it should.

1) Agree support scaling needs a tuning pass. More follow-up we need to do there.
2) Stop with the "ONLY NON-SUPPORTS ARE IN-GAME" when Lulu, Nami, Taric and even some Janna are getting played in lieu of this. Don't overblow a reasonable critique of the scaling satisfaction with false and sensationalized statements.

Solo Queue trends comes from pro streams and the LCS. The pros aren't playing Nami Taric or Janna, and only 3 out of 48 picks where there was a Sona, 'Raka or Alistar actually played in the na lcs. 6 Core supports seeing a total of 3 picks out of the possible 48. Those stats are pathetic. Annie, thresh, and leona seeing 41 out of 48 picks is disgusting and so bloody dull.

Amen, but Sona actually bursts lol Get Lich on her and she can push towers with 800+ damage with passive and lich proc. Currently I am 12-2 and whenever I get a bad team I just push all day lol Wish they did something about Janna tho

E
200 AP - Also increases allies attack speed by a small amount.
300 AP - Also increases CDR by a small amount.
400 AP - Sona's movespeed remains at the full boost level until she hits another chord (i.e. it doesn't decay until she hits q).

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For Nami, certain AP thresholds could add additional bounces to her ability.

For Janna, you could add additional tornadoes (think Heimer's rockets).

For Soraka... well that's a bigger project.

Anyways, I think the scaling utility should go beyond raw numbers and go into the mechanics of the abilities. It would be a bit more satisfying.